June 22, 20223 yr 18 hours ago, TEW said: I don’t think Putin believes himself to be a fascist. Oh, cool! Well, that settles it.
June 22, 20223 yr Putin: We are working to create an international reserve currency based on the BRICS basket of currencies
June 22, 20223 yr 7 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said: Oh, cool! Well, that settles it. Yeah, it kind of does. Fascism is a political ideology. Fascists have actual beliefs in regards to economics, social norms, responsibilities of the elite class to the working class, etc. Putin doesn’t have many, if any, of these beliefs.
June 22, 20223 yr 6 minutes ago, TEW said: Yeah, it kind of does. Fascism is a political ideology. Fascists have actual beliefs in regards to economics, social norms, responsibilities of the elite class to the working class, etc. Putin doesn’t have many, if any, of these beliefs. Fascism exists in a variety of forms, and there are many aspects to it. It evolves and reappears over the course of time with a different face. I don't think you have to conform to every aspect of classical fascism to be generally considered fascist. I'd consider him a neofascist. The most important element to fascism is the role of the state and its power of most aspects of daily life. Quote Fascism : a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/fascism Quote Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism,[1] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy[2] that rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.[3][4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism Quote 1: often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition 2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial controlearly instances of army fascism and brutality— J. W. Aldridge https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism I don't know how you could read these definitions and no see the parallels to Putin's Russia. I think there is some variance from the traditional economic conditions of early 20th-Century fascism, but the economy is still pretty much under Putin's thumb one way or another.
June 22, 20223 yr 6 minutes ago, Abracadabra said: Putin: We are working to create an international reserve currency based on the BRICS basket of currencies Yeah a country that despite vast natural resources and 144m people wouldn't even be in the top three US States in GDP, and whose government and economy suffers from corruption and grift from top to bottom, is a really scary proposition....
June 22, 20223 yr 1 minute ago, JohnSnowsHair said: Yeah a country that despite vast natural resources and 144m people wouldn't even be in the top three US States in GDP, and whose government and economy suffers from corruption and grift from top to bottom, is a really scary proposition.... Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa make up BRICS so even if the misleading GDP of Russia was an impediment, the nations as a whole offer a potentially viable alternative reserve currency. You may not think much of it but I bet the FED is shitting BRICS.
June 22, 20223 yr 22 minutes ago, TEW said: Yeah, it kind of does. Fascism is a political ideology. Fascists have actual beliefs in regards to economics, social norms, responsibilities of the elite class to the working class, etc. Putin doesn’t have many, if any, of these beliefs. Fascism is more of a style of authoritarianism than an ideology of its own. You could have an economy very similar to that of Hitler's Germany (and Russia's current economy is not far from that) but if you lack the ultranationalistic and militaristic traits and are without a "strongman" type dictator demagogue at the top, it wouldn't look much like fascism.
June 22, 20223 yr 18 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said: Fascism exists in a variety of forms, and there are many aspects to it. It evolves and reappears over the course of time with a different face. I don't think you have to conform to every aspect of classical fascism to be generally considered fascist. I'd consider him a neofascist. The most important element to fascism is the role of the state and its power of most aspects of daily life. I don't know how you could read these definitions and no see the parallels to Putin's Russia. I think there is some variance from the traditional economic conditions of early 20th-Century fascism, but the economy is still pretty much under Putin's thumb one way or another. I would disagree with those definitions. They’re overly broad and lazy, which is being generous. They make the word a synonym for dictator or dictatorship. Clearly not all dictators are fascists. You wouldn’t call Lenin a fascist, for instance, and yet he fits those definitions near perfectly. Putin is a dictator, but fascism requires a lot more than that.
June 22, 20223 yr 6 minutes ago, TEW said: I would disagree with those definitions. They’re overly broad and lazy, which is being generous. They make the word a synonym for dictator or dictatorship. Clearly not all dictators are fascists. You wouldn’t call Lenin a fascist, for instance, and yet he fits those definitions near perfectly. Putin is a dictator, but fascism requires a lot more than that. Well, a cursory look isn't returning much variance in the definitions. Even Cambridge is pretty much on point with those: Quote a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control, and being extremely proud of country and race, and in which political opposition is not allowed https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/fascism I think part of the takeaway is that fascism is ultimately just modern authoritarianism, a form of dictatorship that is similar to but somewhat different from that of empires. I find it interesting that fascism is typically understood as a right-wing form of government, but in practice, it exists at both ends of the spectrum. At the end of the day, NSDAP Germany didn't look much different from Stalinist Russia or Maoist China in practice.
June 22, 20223 yr So what happens to members of Russian media if they report things that are against the states wishes? If I were a popular Russian anchorman and I went on live TV and talked about Putin the way a Carlson would talk about Biden here in the US, what would happen to me?
June 23, 20223 yr 2 minutes ago, Boogyman said: So what happens to members of Russian media if they report things that are against the states wishes? If I were a popular Russian anchorman and I went on live TV and talked about Putin the way a Carlson would talk about Biden here in the US, what would happen to me? You'd accidentally fall out of a 10th story window
June 23, 20223 yr 34 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said: Fascism is more of a style of authoritarianism than an ideology of its own. You could have an economy very similar to that of Hitler's Germany (and Russia's current economy is not far from that) but if you lack the ultranationalistic and militaristic traits and are without a "strongman" type dictator demagogue at the top, it wouldn't look much like fascism. I would agree that style in and of itself, both literally and in the nature of government, is important to defining fascism, but to say that it’s not an ideology strikes me as strange. It’s pretty clearly ideological in nature: philosophically it’s collectivist, hierarchical, and exclusive; fundamentally it is authoritarian, socially conservative (in most aspects at least), scientific, economically mixed though leaning heavily towards collective, and nationalistic (in the strict sense of the term where the people of the nation are prominent). I would disagree that Russia’s economy looks anything like Hitler’s. Germany had extremely productive industry, efficient public works, perhaps the most advanced scientific community in the world, and the means of production was state owned by proxy. Russia’s economy is built around commodities and is more of a kleptocracy where elites simply loot the wealth of the nation. That’s in stark contrast with Hitler’s Germany where the economy truly served the state, and the elites — while obviously living to a very high standard — were not systematically looting the nation the way they are in Russia. Quite the contrary actually. In NSDAP Germany elites were under threat of life if they engaged in that sort of greed. The level of corruption insofar as theft at the higher levels was relatively low. You also need a strong social element. Everything from architecture and art/music which builds the foundation of the people’s aesthetic to things like eugenics, enforced morality, etc. Putin doesn’t give a crap about most of that stuff, and when he does, it’s generally a response to popular opinion. Obviously there is some variance and differing degrees to which a fascist might adhere to these things. Franco, for instance, wasn’t all that militaristic and was open to accepting the indigenous South Americans as part of the Spanish people, but on the whole a fascist is going to touch on most of this stuff at some level.
June 23, 20223 yr 23 minutes ago, Boogyman said: So what happens to members of Russian media if they report things that are against the states wishes? If I were a popular Russian anchorman and I went on live TV and talked about Putin the way a Carlson would talk about Biden here in the US, what would happen to me? 18 minutes ago, DEagle7 said: You'd accidentally fall out of a 10th story window Freak nerve poison accident.
June 23, 20223 yr 41 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said: Well, a cursory look isn't returning much variance in the definitions. Even Cambridge is pretty much on point with those: I think part of the takeaway is that fascism is ultimately just modern authoritarianism, a form of dictatorship that is similar to but somewhat different from that of empires. I find it interesting that fascism is typically understood as a right-wing form of government, but in practice, it exists at both ends of the spectrum. At the end of the day, NSDAP Germany didn't look much different from Stalinist Russia or Maoist China in practice. Yeah, that’s what I take issue with, because it’s really not. If anything, it’s a relic of the 20th century and has nothing to do with modernity. Fascism was supposed to be "the third way” — acknowledging the failures of both communism and capitalism, and synthesizing the systems within the framework of natural order and hierarchy. They see capitalism as exploitative and perverse, but acknowledge that there is a social dominance pyramid. Thus, an industrialist like Ford is admired. A "great man” in the Carlyle sense, who improved the condition of the people through his own ingenuity. Such a man is worthy of respect in a fascist framework because, although rich beyond measure, he compensated his workers well and advanced the condition of the people at large. In a fascist system he would control Ford Motors, own it in a nominal sense, but the production would be dictated by the state to serve the nation.
June 23, 20223 yr 1 hour ago, TEW said: Yeah, that’s what I take issue with, because it’s really not. If anything, it’s a relic of the 20th century and has nothing to do with modernity. I said "modern," but I probably should've used "contemporary," because I was referring to the current era, but "modern" as a historical reference usually indicates a period from about the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the end of WWII. The current age is often historically referenced to as post-modern. But your comment that it has nothing to do with modernity is interesting. Fascism, and particularly Naziism, are absolutely wrapped up in modernity. It was largely the product of modern industrialization and modern thought (and in some cases, a reaction to it), but I digress.
June 23, 20223 yr What I mean is that what makes a government fascist is more about how it achieves those ends than what those ends are. The type of economy for example seems at best secondary in determining whether a government is fascist. Is it very nationalistic? Is there a singular party in power with a strong man dictator demagogue at the top? Does it use the power of the state to violently suppress political opposition? Does any opportunity for political change exist within the system, through some kind of democratic means? Does it embrace anti-liberal techniques such as criminalizing speech it deems a danger to the state? Does it make heavy use of propaganda to pressure the public into continued support of the party and vilify enemies both domestic and abroad? I'd argue that modern Russia checks those boxes behind a veneer of "democracy" that we all know to be laughable. Any serious opposition to Putin has been killed off, arrested, or exiled (or some combination of those). I'd argue it's a sort of neo-fascism, with the important parts for the party leadership kept intact along with just enough "democracy" to obfuscate the practical reality that it's effectively the same from the state level. In terms of economy, Russia is absolutely more of what Germany might have been if Germany 1930s was the kleptocracy Russia is. That goes more to culture of Germans vs the culture of the Russian people I'd say, where grift and corruption are built in costs to any economic system installed. German culture values attention to detail and efficiency, Russia .... does not. Strictly speaking it may be hard to say definitively that modern Russia is fascist in its current state. But it's pretty close in all the ways the really matter already, and constructed I think intentionally in a way where any sort of military or national crisis would see the state move swiftly to a truly fascist government likely with the popular support of the people who have been conditioned by the state for a generation to embrace it through very fascist style propaganda.
June 23, 20223 yr Top US Air Force general says the Russian air force's struggles in Ukraine are surprising because Russia is fighting its 'own systems' https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-us-air-force-general-says-the-russian-air-forces-struggles-in-ukraine-are-surprising-because-russia-is-fighting-its-own-systems/ar-AAYKZ3d?ocid=BingNews Quote "I think for me it's surprising for the Russians because the systems they're going against are their own systems," Gen. Charles Brown Jr. said Wednesday at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. "They should know them fairly well and how to defeat them." "It kind of begs a real question for me: How come they don't understand their own systems and how they might defeat their own systems?" he added Poor training. It is always the first thing removed in cuts. Effective military training is very expensive. The oligarchs needed that money for mega-yachts.
June 23, 20223 yr 14 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said: thoughts and prayers @Abracadabra Still indulging fantasies about Russian failure? 1000 casualties per day now. The rate of attrition is unsustainable for both men and material. All this while Russia has committed no more than 15% of their forces. 200,000 allied forces (mainly Donetsk militia) has defeated 650,000 well dug-in, NATO trained and equipped army in 16 weeks. Astonishing!
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